First Draft of June Minutes

[Dalton, George W.]

Minutes for the June 21, 2000 meeting:

Attendees:

Tom Wllenius
Marion Clark
Jerry King
Sam Longstreet
Maitland Bottoms
George Dalton
Jim Wamsley
Michael Merritt
Dave Levy
Paul Demaio-didn't sign the attendance sheet but his ploy didn't fool
anyone.

Agenda Item 1:

Marion Clark reports that the City Council has decided the Holmes Run
Bridge will stay where it is.  
The site plans for the bridge are being reviewed by various city agencies.

Agenda Item 2:

The developers say they can finish the Jamieson trail by the end of June.
It will be 5 ft off the fence line and 10 ft wide with some grading. It
will have only 2 inches of asphalt since it is only temporary.  Marion
will do a rough plan for approval before construction.  Marion's guess is
that the trail won't be finished until the first week in July.

Action Item- Remove the "On Sidewalk" subsigns from the bike route signs
along Duke Street.

The Sheraton Corporation is reconstructing the bridge in order to have a 
way to bring their equipment to their constructions site so the bridge
reconstruction schedule is dictated by Sheraton not the city.

Bridge reconstruction will block the trail.  We need to come up with 
acceptable scenarios.   Our acceptable scenarios are in order of preference:

a) Re-open the sanitation authority trail before Sheraton Closes the
Jamieson
Bridge

b) If choice "a" can't happen, paint bikes-only (or bikes and buses only?) 
lanes on Duke Street between Holland and Payne.

Marion is pushing for a zoning ordnance that no bike lanes shall be removed
without first providing an acceptable alternative.

Agenda Item 3:

VDOT wants to move its construction staging area from the cleared area
around Telegraph called Lehigh to the wetlands area adjacent to Clermont
Natural Park and Ben Brenman Park.  The Lehigh site can be developed now
before traffic congestion in Eisenhower Valley reduces its value.  The
new site is somewhat protected and un-subdiveded so the VDOT strategy is
to get the present owners to subdivide it, sell it to VDOT, VDOT converts
it to industrial use, when the 12 Lane beltway is finished, VDOT can sell
it back to developers as unprotected pre subdivided land ready for 
development.  If VDOT doesn't use it there is a good chance that it will 
remain as a protected natural area.  The reason this is a bicycle issue is
that the VDOT use will interfere with the Eisenhower Greenway.

Agenda Item 4:

At the Wilson Bridge design hearing, nobody knows exactly what they'll
end up doing.  They've botched the urban deck-bike path connection with
sharp
turns. After using a large urban deck as a selling point for the bridge,
they
shrink it as they refine their design.  


Agenda Item 5:

No news on the TEA-21 grant.

Agenda Item 6:

For the 2nd printing of the bike map there will be 20,000 copies.  These
copies are expected to last for a year.

Agenda Item 7:

The background paper would be a good addition to the web site.

Agenda Item 8:

Maitland promises to be more diligent about providing content for our web 
site, the final versions of the minutes should start appearing.  No one but 
Paul has volunteered to help him.  Tom suggested that a simplified black 
and white bike map would be handy for quick downloads.  

Agenda Item 9:

Paul has photos of the last bike to work day.  Next year we need better
signage to gather more bikers from the street.  The portable sandwich board
signs might work.  Free food seemed to be a stronger draw than bike commuter
solidarity, information or tune ups.  St. Elmos coffee shop supported the
event, and showed interest in "artsy" bike racks that also advertise their
business.  
Our bike racks from VDOT will come in during August.

Agenda Item 10:

Jim Neurohr from TES will work with BSC to test traffic signals for 
bike compatibility.  

Agenda Item 11:

There will be another Wilson Bridge Stakeholder's meeting on June 29th
at the Wilson Bridge Design Center, some of us will attend.

Agenda Item 12:

Neither Bruce nor Paul will be at the next July 19th meeting.  We might
meet at St. Elmos.  We agreed to coordinate through the BSC e-mail list
server.

Adjournment occurred with the usual gemutlichkeit.